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My Study Method + Revision Tools - Cambridge junior doctor

2018-10-21 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:55 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Learning and studying (also: Medicine and his doctor years, Tools, apps and tech) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: His medical past, His own numbers, Sponsor segment present

Starting a series of videos on his preparation for the MRCOG, Ali sets out a three-phase study plan resting on active recall and spaced repetition (scope the subject, fill the holes with broad strokes, then drill into detail) and his tools: Quizlet, Google Sheets, the iPad Pro, question banks and textbooks.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — A new series documenting his preparation for the MRCOG, the obstetrics and gynaecology exam

  • ★★★ Ali starts a series of videos documenting his preparation for the MRCOG, the membership exam of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Ali thinks that over fifteen years of exams he has got pretty good at doing exams in a fun and efficient way. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Obstetrics and gynaecology is the specialty Ali wants to go into. — 00:00:58 · Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • ★ Ali says exams do not end with medical school: every medical and surgical specialty has many exams, really quite hard ones, like medical school finals taken up a notch. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — The two principles of effective studying: active recall and spaced repetition

  • ★★★ Ali does not believe in cramming, which he calls a complete myth. — 00:02:15 · spaced repetition

    “Cramming is a complete myth”

  • ★★★ Ali calls active recall and spaced repetition the two fundamental pillars on which everything else in his study strategy rests. — 00:02:45 · active recall, spaced repetition

  • ★★ Ali's aim is not only to pass the MRCOG: he wants to become a good doctor who knows his specialty and his subject. — 00:02:45

00:03:14 — His study strategy in three phases

  • ★★ Ali thinks scoping the subject, working out its broad chapters and their subtopics, is the most important thing in any strategy for preparing for any exam. — 00:03:44 · scoping the subject
  • ★★ In the first phase Ali writes down everything he already knows and understands about each topic, to see where the biggest holes in his knowledge are and fill those first. — 00:04:13 · active recall
  • ★★ In the second phase Ali ignores niche details and fills the holes with a huge paintbrush, so that he knows all the content at a basic level before digging deeper. — 00:04:42
  • ★ Ali says that in many subjects, especially medicine at university, there is a literally infinite amount one could learn. (overstated) — 00:05:11
  • ★★★ Ali's exam plan has three phases: scope the subject and work out what he already knows; fill the holes with broad brush strokes; only then drill deep into the details. — 00:05:41 · scoping the subject

00:06:10 — Quizlet flashcards, and why he stopped using Anki

  • ★★ Ali's flashcard app for the MRCOG will be Quizlet, the presenting sponsor of this video. — 00:06:10 · Quizlet
  • ★★ Ali found getting through his Anki flashcard decks became a real chore, so he stopped using Anki and switched to his Google Sheets method. — 00:06:49 · Anki, Google Sheets
  • ★★★ Ali does not use flashcards for broad concepts, which he understands by the Feynman technique of explaining them to a five-year-old; flashcards are for the many facts that postgraduate medical exams require. — 00:07:47

00:08:18 — Google Sheets as a retrospective revision timetable and for active recall

  • ★★ Instead of a revision timetable, Ali tracks his spaced repetition in Google Sheets as a retrospective timetable: he logs each topic once he has studied and actively recalled it. — 00:08:18 · Google Sheets, spaced repetition
  • ★★ Ali promises a more detailed video on how he builds his retrospective revision timetable in Google Sheets. — 00:08:18 · Google Sheets
  • ★★ Ali also uses Google Sheets for active recall: the broad topics of each chapter sit in his sheet, colour-coded by how well he knows them, so he sees at a glance what to test himself on. — 00:08:18 · Google Sheets, active recall

00:09:33 — iPad Pro and Apple Pencil for notes

  • ★★ Ali is not a fan of taking notes or summarising as revision, but finds a single source of truth useful where no summaries are readily available. — 00:09:33
  • ★★ Ali's primary note-taking device for the MRCOG is his iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. — 00:09:33 · iPad Pro, Apple Pencil
  • ★★ Ali's video on how he takes notes on his iPad at medical school has 1.3 million views, by far the most popular on his channel. — 00:09:33 · iPad Pro
  • ★ Ali uses his iPad Pro at work every day for his to-do list. — 00:10:17 · iPad Pro

00:10:41 — Exam questions and past-paper cases from day one

  • ★★ Ali does exam questions and past-paper cases from the first day of preparation, since there is no point preparing for an exam without knowing what will come up. — 00:10:41

00:11:10 — Textbooks at the postgraduate level

  • ★★★ Ali dislikes textbooks for medical school exams as far too detailed, but at the postgraduate level much of the information is in textbooks, so he will use them, especially in his third phase. — 00:11:10

00:12:19 — Wrap-up: a hard exam, a full-time job, and next week's study-with-me day

  • ★★ Ali says the MRCOG is supposed to be quite a hard exam, with a quite low pass rate. — 00:12:19
  • ★★ Ali works full-time as a doctor and part-time as a YouTuber, so preparing for the MRCOG will test how efficiently he can study. — 00:12:49
  • ★★ Ali promises next week's (week of 22 October 2018) video as his first proper study-with-me video: on his day off next Friday (26 October 2018) he will spend the whole day studying and scoping out his subject. — 00:13:18 · scoping the subject

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: active recall · MRCOG · spaced repetition

Also: Organizations: University of Cambridge · Wikipedia

Concepts: Feynman technique · Obstetrics and gynaecology · scoping the subject

Places: Cambridge

Products: Anki · Apple Pencil · Google Sheets · iPad Pro · Notability · Quizlet

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